


Archives Metro 8am

by pinebluffvariant



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Gen, The X-Files Revival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-27
Updated: 2015-09-27
Packaged: 2018-04-23 17:01:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4884679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinebluffvariant/pseuds/pinebluffvariant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the first day of fall in DC, Dana Scully walks to her office.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Archives Metro 8am

On the first day of fall in DC, Dana Scully walks to her new- her old- her office in the basement of the Hoover building. 

She never thought she would set foot there again, not after the disgusting, humiliating treatment she and Mulder had subjected themselves to in 2008, groveling for a pardon which, when it came, in the end, didn’t free them. They stepped outside freed but they were never free. They inhaled, they exhaled, they came together, and they fell apart. They’d tried to ignore what held them captive and didn’t notice until it was too late. They combusted, violently. 

But energy never disappears, it simply rearranges itself. From love to fear to hurt to quiet back to curiosity and excitement and intensity and yes, love. A thing like this doesn’t end, it just changes. She knows what he’ll be wearing under that suit when she gets to the office. She knows the weight of his body, the weight of his mind. She’s crossed fields and countries, rivers and oceans with him, and it doesn’t surprise her that she’s back here with him, not really. It is a safety and a danger, and she has decades of experience balancing the two, tattooed on her body.

Now she stands across Pennsylvania Avenue from the National Archives and sips coffee from fancy Paul, not a hotdog cart, while life courses through the city’s veins around her.

 

She sits down at the Navy Memorial and remembers when Ahab took the whole family to DC in 1974. He brought them here, explained that men like him had bled for this place, for the plaques and their names and the masts and flags. He saluted a uniformed sailor and nodded solemnly.

Little 10-year-old Dana had thought her father’s speeches hyperbolic. She was embarrassed about her bologna sandwich brought from home as she watched elegant women in glamorous office wear, with high afros and higher heels, swish by her in a cloud of superiority. 51-year-old Dana has spilled plenty of blood herself. She is that woman, now, to the kids doing skateboard tricks on the Archives steps. But little 10-year-old Dana has been here, is here still.

She’s almost ready to go; she’ll finish her coffee first. The stream of commuters emerging on the Archives Metro escalator is steady. They’re going to the Moultrie Courthouse, to the Archives, to the museums and coffee shops and chain restaurants and banks. She’ll watch just a little longer.

A man takes two steps at a time up the escalator. His shoulders are broad, a contemporary cut suit jacket draped across them. It’s a snug fit. The close cropped hair at the back of his neck tickles his shirt collar. On his right shoulder: a leather satchel, its strap taut with hefty books, files, folders, probably a tablet and some pens. He gets to the top of the escalator, shifts on his feet - she can tell he’s making a calculation: can he spare a minute for some coffee? - and then makes a sharp right towards the crosswalk. The red hand appears; he didn’t make it. 

The man stands and waits at the crosswalk with people in suits, in uniforms, in hooded sweatshirts, carrying maps of downtown and shuffling in orthopedic sneakers. In profile, Mulder in his mid-fifties is a solid figure, his brow bone and his jawline showing his age. His clothes fit well, suggest an awareness of where he is in life. Nothing about him lies. It’s good, she thinks, it’s good to look like you’ve been alive. 

He’s restless as he always is, unwilling to idle. He opens the buckle of his bag, peers inside, and rummages for something. He rests his weight on his right hip, hunches down with a small notebook and a cheap Bic pen, and scribbles something. 

This moment is a window. 14-year-old Fox, dressed in his school uniform, is standing in line for the Vineyard school bus, awkward and gangly, and makes notes in his little pad. He just read Brave New World; the note is to remember something important he’ll follow up on later, alone in his room. 

It could be either 1975 or 2016. He’s always been him and she’s always known him. They walk this walk together.

The light turns green. She drains her coffee. “Mulder!” she calls across the plaza. He is attuned to his environment, and he whips his head around and searches the perimeter. She waves. 

The recognition in his eyes is the same as it always is, the same as it was the first time they met, the same as it was every morning he opened his eyes in their bed, the same it was this morning, when he opened his eyes in her bed. A spark, a relief, a curiosity.

She grabs her bag and half-jogs over to him. He smiles. “Hi,” he says, “you’re right, the green line is a mess.”

They make their way east down Pennsylvania toward their crumbling concrete office building, where lives are about to bloom.

What will the day bring, Mulder?

Let’s find out.


End file.
